East Nashville United Plans Town Hall Meeting

East Nashville United is holding a Town Hall Meeting on schools on November 9th at 3:45 PM at East Park Community Center.

From their media advisory:

After weeks of contradictory and confusing statements from Metro Schools about its proposed “Third Way” proposal, East Nashville United (ENU) will host a town hall meeting to raise concerns about the future of the Stratford-Maplewood cluster. This open meeting will be held on Sunday, November 9 at 3:45 p.m. at the East Park Community Center, 600 Woodland Street, 37206.

ENU, a parent-led coalition formed after the announcement of sweeping changes to the Stratford-Maplewood clusters, invites all members of the community to join this discussion around the lack of community input into the school plan. The group has also invited MNPS Director of Schools Dr. Jesse Register, Executive Director of the Office of Innovation Dr. Alan Coverstone, and School Board Member Elissa Kim to share their thoughts on the district’s proposed changes and to take questions from the community.

“The district’s plan will affect every public school parent in East Nashville,” says John Haubenreich, ENU’s chair. “We’d like to invite parents and all stakeholders to our town hall meeting to learn more about the district’s actions and what it all means to them.”

ENU would like to particularly discuss the district’s plans for Inglewood Elementary and Kirkpatrick Elementary, particularly in light of the apparent agreement to turn Inglewood over to KIPP that surfaced last week. This news broke after the Nashville Scene published emails from Coverstone revealing that the district engaged in detailed negotiations to hand over Inglewood to KIPP weeks before Register’s announcement of his “Third-Way” proposal. The plan for Inglewood is in direct contradiction to comments made by both Coverstone and Register to Inglewood parents. Both had said no plan is set for the school, with Register telling Inglewood parents he would recommend against a charter conversion.

“Dr. Register appears to be making this stuff up as he goes along. That’s not exactly comforting to those of us who raise our kids here,” Haubenreich says. “From everything we can tell, his plan will close down some schools, convert others to charters, and affect pathways for students throughout both clusters. So far, there has been no real community input whatsoever.  Any plan like that is simply going to destabilize our schools instead of improving them.”

Dr. Register has pledged to put his sweeping plan before the school board in December. As of publication, Metro has yet to announce the members of the task force it agreed to create last month.

For more on this issue:

East Nashville Parents Call on Register to “Start Over”

East Nashville United Asks for More Time

MNPS and East Nashville United Debate the Meaning of Some Emails

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

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